The academy side of Overwatch League team San Francisco Shock will operate out of a “training home” in Washington, D.C., NRG Esports announced today.
A partnership with Events DC, the official convention and sports authority for D.C., established in March 2017, is the reason for the new digs. San Francisco Shock’s academy league team, operated by NRG Esports, will use that name when the roster debuts in Overwatch Contenders in March—likely to avoid the inevitable geographical confusion,
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Six players on the NRG Esports Contenders roster will move to D.C. to live and work in the new team house.
“With the Overwatch Contenders [team] coming to live, train and play in Washington, D.C., this represents another opportunity for D.C. to be positioned as the capital of esports,” Events DC president Greg O’Dell said in a statement. “Our esports initiative will also play a key role in helping to fuel our growth—at the future Entertainment and Sports Arena in Congress Heights and with an international reach as well.”
Alongside the team house, the Overwatch Contenders roster will wear a Events DC logo on their jerseys, as well as participate in events local to D.C. “We’re not the D.C. NRG,” NRG Esports co-owner Andy Miller told Mashable in March 2017. “But we will be spending a bunch of time down there.”
Matches for the Overwatch Contenders regular season are played weekly online, with an offline finals event. NRG Esports’ first match is scheduled for March 13 at 9pm ET against the Philadelphia Fusion’s Overwatch academy team.
The full roster includes support players Riley “Fahzix” Taylor and Robert “Rob420” Garcia, tanks Eoghan “Smex” O’Neill and Yoon “Butcher” Sangwon, and DPS players Ethan “Stratus” Yankel and Kim “Daemin” Dae-min.
